had no feeling of nationalism; he was therefore unable to invoke the defence of his country, of “Mother France”. He needed a more universal cause; like many of his comrades, he believed he had found it in the struggle against Communism. Communism as he had known it in Camp One, deprived of all human substance by the Viet-Minh, could only result in a universe of sexless insects.…
He is compared by the author to those Roman centurions who “tried to maintain the outposts of the Empire while the people back in Rome were sinking back into Christianity, and the Caesars into debauchery”. In real life “Boisfeuras” had his opposite number in Colonel Antoine Argoud, another para whose extremity in belief and deed were to bring him notoriety later on. “We want to halt the decadence of the West and the march of Communism,” declared Argoud in court during the Barricades Trial of November 1960: “That is our duty, the real duty of the army. That is why we must win the war in Algeria. Indo-China taught us to see the truth.…” To men like “Boisfeuras” and Argoud the war against Communism was a permanent and unceasing phenomenon; while nationalism, in the Indo-Chinese and Algerian context, was largely equated with Communism. Theirs was a doctrine, says Edward Behr, “which, if carried to its logical conclusion, would have led to fascism not only in Algeria but in France as well”. Certainly, in the army’s contempt for the men of the Fourth Republic and the sense of its destiny to restore the grandeur of France, it was to be led close to destroying the nation’s democratic functions.
If the Indo-China experience had succeeded in cementing the unity of the French professional army, says Behr also, it was to do so “only at the expense of turning it into a ‘band of brothers’ isolated from the French nation as a whole”. The isolation also extended, to some extent, to the pieds noirs with whom the army had a prickly relationship. The dashing paras skimmed the cream of the girls on the beaches but — as usual in such circumstances — there were not enough to go round for the rest, and not every pied noir home was open to the army. “They made them pay for everything, and they never did anything to defend themselves,” says Colonel Coulet, reflecting a popular view in the army. In one small rural settlement, Leulliette recalls the frightened pieds noirs angrily blaming the soldiers for the menace of the F.L.N.: “It’s you who attracts them here!” As time went by the officers as well as the men became less and less sympathetic to protecting the interests, or property, of the grands colons. “We have not come here”, declared Radio-Bigeard, the paras’ own station: “to defend colonialism. We have nothing in common with the rich colons who exploit the Muslims. We are the defenders of liberty and of a new order. While we were fighting in Indo-China, while we were suffering in Viet-Minh prisons, men liberally paid betrayed us…. Here you will not be betrayed.…” In general, the attitude towards the Muslim population tended to be one of reforming liberalism; though often, perhaps, with a distinctly paternalistic flavour. Yet, as Servan-Schreiber notes, there was a “symbiosis” gradually growing up between the regulars and the pieds noirs, based on accepting each other’s policy — because there was no other. That policy was, simply, the waging of war à outrance against the rebels. But, in the policy of common interest, each had different objectives that, at the very end, would bring them into tragic conflict; for one, it was to survive in the order of things as before; for the other, chiefly to win a military victory.
The coming of Salan
In December 1956, the same month that Castro landed in Cuba aboard the Granma, the French Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, General Lorillot, left for home after seventeen months in command. A bachelor and a dedicated, monk-like soldier, Lorillot had become profoundly depressed. Although the troops at his disposal had doubled since Soustelle’s day, and virtually all his demands had been satisfied, the rebellion had continued to prove uncontainable and almost nowhere in Algeria could be described as definitively “pacified”. The debacle at Suez had been the last blow for Lorillot, and it was clearly time for him to be replaced by someone with a fresh outlook. On 14 December the new commander arrived, a figure who from now on would be central to the whole drama of Algeria right through to the end.
General Raoul Salan was France’s most decorated soldier; it was even rumoured that he went to bed wearing his bananes, which included the British C.B.E. and the American Distinguished Service Cross, awarded when commanding de Lattre’s old 14th Division. No Frenchman of his generation — in fact, few soldiers anywhere — had fought as much as Salan. Leaving St Cyr as an officer cadet, he had seen the last fighting on the grim field of Verdun in 1918 at the age of nineteen. After being seriously wounded in the Levant campaign of 1920–1, Salan made his debut in Indo-China as a young captain, lived in the outback, learned Laotian, fought river pirates and local warlords, and joined the Deuxième Bureau. From now on his character was shaped by the twin influences of the colonial army and clandestine intelligence work, the intrigues of which he found far from unappealing. In 1939 he was sent on an undercover mission to Italian-occupied Ethiopia, ostensibly as a correspondent of Le Temps, to gauge the possibility of a native uprising against the Italians. Recalled to France, he found himself commanding a battalion of Senegalese Tirailleurs thrown in to stem the German panzers on the Somme in June 1940. In 1942 he was at Dakar as head of the A.O.F. (Vichy) Deuxième Bureau, then switched to the same job with Free French Headquarters in Algiers. In 1944 he landed on the Riviera, liberated Toulon and had a street named after him by grateful citizens of a neighbouring town. Fighting his way northwards, he ended the war on Lake Constance as a general. Almost immediately afterwards he was despatched to Indo-China, becoming de Lattre’s second-in-command in 1950. The marshal thought highly of Salan’s capacity for detailed planning, but was perhaps critical of his excessive prudence, commenting, “He never goes on board without a lifejacket.” On de Lattre’s tragic death in 1952 Salan took over the command. It was remarked then that he “launched an occasional blow against the Viet-Minh ‘so daring that de Lattre himself might have thought twice about undertaking it’; but then he relapsed into periods of indolence”. Then, in 1954, it was Salan who had to preside over the humiliating end of the présence française in Indo-China.
Accompanying him on his arrival in Algiers was Madame Salan, nicknamed la biche (the doe), the quintessence of the loyal army wife, indefatigable in welfare work with both the troops and Muslims, and inseparable from her husband in all his campaigns. In Algiers their small son was to die and be buried. Though only of medium height, physically Salan cut an impressive figure as he stepped off the plane; a chest well developed for bearing the countless rows of bananes; blue eyes and swept-back silver hair tinted with just a touch of blue; and a handsome profile that made journalists think of a “Roman pro-consul”. But the blue eyes masked an impenetrable and complex personality. Salan was known as le Mandarin or le Chinois, but less on account of his long sojourn in the East than for the impassive mysteriousness with which he surrounded himself — and which gave rise to a multitude of rumours about him. He was, they said, a Freemason and a Protestant (in fact, he was a lapsed Catholic); he was a Socialist (in fact, though his father had been, he never was); he was an opium smoker and (according to Claude Paillat) had exploited the drug traffic in Indo-China to the benefit of French Intelligence — charges which he waves aside with a derisory gesture. During the Second World War he had managed to be “neither Pétainist, nor Gaullist; just anti-German”; a detachment which fellow-officers, who as a rule had come down heavily on one side or the other, found baffling.
What was certain about Salan was that he was highly intelligent but susceptible to flattery; ambitious; and — in contrast to his much more straightforward subordinate, Massu — an extremely well-developed political animal. Yet, at the same time, as a soldier he was a man of simple tastes, eschewing the glitter of receptions and public functions, and preferring to be at his desk or out visiting units, where he was generally to be seen in rolled-up shirtsleeves instead of the more formal attire worn by other senior “brass�
��. There was also no doubt that, within a short time, Salan, by his energetic policy of pressing the attack home on the enemy, giving him no respite night or day, did put a new spirit into the army in Algeria.
But somehow people instinctively did not trust Salan. De Gaulle (who, when writing his memoirs, could not be regarded as quite unprejudiced) says of him: “there was something slippery and inscrutable in the character of this capable, clever and in some respects beguiling figure”. In December 1956 the pieds noirs were certainly not “beguiled” by the new Commander-in-Chief. To them he was the left-wing general who had sold out in Indo-China and was now coming to do the same in Algeria. They reacted to his appointment with the same irrational, ill-founded rage with which they had greeted first Soustelle, then Catroux. This time, however, some of them were prepared to go much further to demonstrate their mistrust.
The Faure conspiracy, and the bazooka
Shortly after Salan’s arrival two events took place that were indicative both of the neurotic atmosphere in Algeria and the mounting tensions within the army itself. Just before Christmas Paul Teitgen, secretary-general at the Algiers Prefecture and in charge of the city police, received a strange visit from a General Jacques Faure, second-in-command of the Algiers sector. Faure was a popular figure in the army, a fine soldier, champion skier and former alpine troop commander; his son was later to be killed in action in Algeria. To Teitgen’s amazement, the general — whom he had never met before — promptly outlined a conspiracy to overthrow the civil government in Algeria and replace it by a military regime. After Christmas Lacoste was due to visit the oasis of Ouargla for a brief holiday; on the way his plane was to be made to land at Paul-Cazelles, where he would be arrested and conducted to a “secret destination”. The conspirators would then seize Algiers radio and announce that Salan was taking over. Faure admitted that Salan was not in the plot, but it was considered that — once it was a fait accompli — he would accede. At the same time, Faure hinted that a number of eminent politicians in France were favourable to the coup, mentioning specifically Michel Debré.
Teitgen, a hero of the Resistance who had survived Dachau, was little disposed towards an army takeover in Algeria in any shape, and he could hardly believe his ears. At first he thought the bronzed and rugged general had gone slightly out of his mind. On second thoughts, however, he decided he should delve a bit deeper, and called Faure in for a further discussion, this time recording it all on a tape. Fortified with it, he then went to warn Lacoste. Distressed by this news, especially as he regarded Faure as a “stout-hearted sort” (un coeur généreux), the governor-general despatched Teitgen to Paris to inform the Minister of Defence, Bourgès-Maunoury. Teitgen has told how the minister’s immediate reaction was to hope that the affair would not “make it impossible for one to go ski-ing”, and asked him whether he had said anything to “ce con-là”, Mitterrand, then Minister of Justice. Shocked by Bourgeès-Maunoury’s apparently frivolous lack of interest, as well as his disrespect for a fellow minister, Teitgen then went on to see Mollet himself. Mollet took the matter much more seriously, but in turn used the same expression in deprecating Bourgès-Maunoury — “ce con-là”! Teitgen returned to Algiers, disquieted at the apparent lack of solidarity within the government. Faure was recalled and sentenced to thirty days’ fortress arrest — the first senior officer to suffer such a penalty for dissidence in Algeria. Salan was enraged that Teitgen should have gone over his head and behind his back in reporting one of his subordinates; while Teitgen’s action may well itself have reflected the general lack of trust inspired by Salan. Meanwhile, the nine days’ wonder of the “Faure conspiracy” was submerged by news of the assassination (on the same day that Teitgen was in Paris) of Amédée Froger, mayor of Boufarik, and the prominent conservative President of the Mayors of Algeria, an act that was to unleash the “Battle of Algiers”.
Hardly had the shock of Faure and the Froger killing been assimilated when there came a much more serious assassination attempt against the person of the Commander-in-Chief, Salan. At 6.40 p.m. on 16 January 1957, Salan had just left his office in the 10th Military Region G.H.Q., a large white building[6] on a corner of the Place Bugeaud, right in the heart of Algiers, to attend a meeting with Lacoste. From the Gouvernement-Général, some twenty minutes later, he heard a powerful explosion, shortly followed by a white-faced secretary rushing in to announce: “It’s your office; Commandant Rodier is wounded!” Rushing back to the Place Bugeaud, Salan found his office blasted and in the next room his chef-de-cabinet, Rodier, lying dead, almost cut in two by the force of the blast. Had Salan been still at his desk he would almost certainly have shared the same fate; his ten-year-old daughter, injured by flying glass while doing her homework in the apartment above, had an even narrower escape. On investigation, Salan discovered that the explosion had been caused by two anti-tank “bazooka” projectiles, ingeniously fired from home-made tubes installed on the roof of the building opposite. One had been sighted on Salan’s office, the other on Rodier’s. Electric wires ran from them to the ground floor where the perpetrator had pressed the button, evidently on seeing the silhouette of Rodier, which he had mistaken for Salan’s. He had then disappeared into the street.
It was immediately reckoned that the attempt was far too sophisticated for the F.L.N., and a number of suspects were rounded up among the “ultra” pieds noirs who had already emerged from the time of the anti-Mollet demonstrations. They included Dr Kovacs, the ex-Hungarian doctor and hypnotist who had become passionately attached to Algeria; Philippe Castille, a former member of the 11th Shock, the para cloak-and-dagger unit that had blown up Ben Boulaid; Michel Fechoz, Dr Jean-Claude Pérez, Robert Martel, Jo Ortiz, the restaurateur, and Georges Wattin, alias “The Limp”. In the motives and complicities behind it, the affaire du bazooka remains one of the most mysterious and shadowy episodes of the whole war. Colonel Godard, chief-of-staff to Massu in Algiers, who intensively questioned motives of the principals, himself admits: “I never understood why.” According to Pierre Vidal-Naquet, supported by Maître Teitgen, many of the records were mysteriously destroyed “on orders” after May 1958; though Teitgen himself managed to keep copies and Salan himself prints Kovacs’s testimony in full.
Under interrogation Castille admitted to setting up the “bazookas” and firing them; while Kovacs revealed that the object behind the plot was to replace the mistrusted bradeur de l’Indochine, Salan, by his former junior there, General Cogny. Following upon this, it was hoped, a “government of national unity” would then be brought to power in Paris. In his deposition Kovacs implicated the involvement behind the conspiracy of a Comité des Six of French politicians — among whom the name of Senator Michel Debré, close associate of General de Gaulle, Minister of Justice in 1958 and later prime minister, figures. After inexplicable delays the “bazooka” trial started in July 1958. Kovacs attended on a stretcher, then “disappeared” to Spain in what the Guardian at the time described as “preposterous circumstances”. He was sentenced to death in absentia; Castille to ten years’ hard labour, Fechoz to six years. Both were liberated by pieds noirs demonstrators during “Barricades Week” of January. Nobody more important was ever brought to trial; though to this day Salan, both in his Mémoires: Fin d’un Empire and privately, still insists on the involvement behind the scenes of Michel Debré and others, but no real evidence has ever been adduced.[7]
Historically, however, what is important about both the “Faure affair” and le bazooka is the profound malady and disaffection that they revealed in the heart of the French army, extending to the higher reaches of the Fourth Republic itself, and which were shortly to burst to the surface with revolutionary force.
[1] Later, but for his disapproval of Gaullist policy which caused him to resign in 1961, he would have risen to the top post of Army Chief-of-Staff.
[2] This nearly ended in disaster when Bigeard, by now nearing sixty and a senior general, was dropped into a shark-infested sea by mistake during a visit
to troops in Madagascar. He broke an arm but was saved by his faithful staff who had parachuted into the sea with him.
[3] The French government assiduously refused to recognise operations in Algeria as anything more than the “maintenance of order”; it was not even a “campaign”, thus the Croix de Guerre could not be awarded and a new decoration, the Médaille de la Valeur Militaire, had to be struck.
[4] Unités Territoriales, auxiliaries formed of pieds noirs.
[5] The Nazi occupation following 1940 may have left other, unpleasanter, legacies to the Algerian war. John Gale, a young British war correspondent who suffered a nervous breakdown following his experiences in Algeria, records a threat made to an F.L.N. suspect by a young para: “I’ll shoot your whole family like mine was shot by the Germans,” and another remark passed, with perhaps a touch of grudging respect, by a para captain: “The Germans did things coldly, systematically.…”
[6] Now, ironically, party headquarters of the F.L.N.
[7] When asked by the author why he had not sued Salan for libel M. Debré replied, “I took legal advice, and was told that the charges made against me were far too vague.” Debré is supported, among others, by the well-informed Brombergers in their book, Les 13 Complots du 13 Mai (1959), who cast doubts both on Kovacs’s evidence and Salan’s own conviction “that he had been shot at by other people than a small team of over-excited Algerian ‘ultras”’. Yes, they assessed, there was a political plot involving senior politicians, but Dr Kovacs had — they suggest — hypnotised himself into the false belief that the Comité had really wanted him to assassinate Salan. Such was the fervid mentality of the pied noir extremists.
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